Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 35

The thirty-fifth verse continues the affectionate teasing. You called the burning summer sun cool moonlight to your younger brother. As you parted from your wife, you parted with her too, and then in Vṛndāvana you played with the gazelle-eyed gopikas. The verse stages two episodes from the Krishna-narrative: first, the Daśaratha-tradition's image of the elder Lord (Rāma) consoling his younger brother Lakṣmaṇa during the harsh exile by calling the summer sun cool moonlight (a gentle lie of love); second, Krishna's departure from his wives and play with the gopis. Both are named with the bhakti-tradition's tender skepticism: Lord, your loves are inconsistent.

If you have come to this verse with bewilderment about the Lord's apparent contradictions, the verse holds the bewilderment with you and bows anyway.

The Living Words

Gharmma-ātapaṁ kuḷir-nilāvennu tampiyoḍu cemmē paṟaññu nija-patnīṁ piriññaḷavu. Calling the summer's heat cool moonlight to your younger brother, parting from your own wife (and then). Gharmma-ātapa is summer-heat; kuḷir-nilā is cool moonlight; tampi is younger brother; cemmē is gently, sweetly; nija-patnī is one's own wife; piriññu is parted.

Tanne piriññu maṟukiccā mṛga-akṣikaḷe vṛndāvanattil atha Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. Parting also from her, you played in Vṛndāvana with the gazelle-eyed (gopikās). Mṛga-akṣi is deer-eyed, gazelle-eyed; vṛndāvana is the forest of Krishna's play.

Scripture References

The Heart of It

The verse is more affectionate than accusing. The seeker is naming, in plain Malayalam, that the Lord's loves and lies are part of the same picture. Rāma's white lie to Lakṣmaṇa during the harsh exile (calling the burning sun cool moonlight so the brother would not despair) is a beloved Tamil-Malayalam image of vātsalya, the protective love of the elder for the younger. Krishna's parting from Rukmiṇī and Satyabhāmā to play with the gopis of Vṛndāvana is, depending on the reading, either a contradiction or a deeper consistency: the gopis are not other wives; they are the soul's own bhakti in dance with the Lord.

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa, in its tenth book, names the Krishna-gopika līlā as parā-bhakti, the highest devotion, where the boundary between lover and Beloved dissolves. The verse-35 tease is the seeker's gentle reminder that the same Lord who taught prapatti (verse 5, kāruḷka) also danced with cowherd-girls in a forest. Both are real. The seeker holds both and bows.

The verse closes the way every other verse closes: Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The bow steadies the seeker through the bewilderment.

The Saints Who Walked This Road

Two saints whose lives received the verse-35 līlā-vaicitrya directly.

Lakṣmaṇa, in the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa, walked the fourteen-year exile beside his elder brother Rāma. The legend records that Rāma, watching his younger brother grow tired in the noon-heat of the forest, called the burning sun cool moonlight so that Lakṣmaṇa would not sink. Lakṣmaṇa, the tradition says, knew the lie was a lie. He chose to receive it as truth because the elder brother had said it. The body image is the two brothers under the kovai-tree at the bend in the forest road, the elder's hand on the younger's shoulder, the small lie of love passing between them.

Yaśodā, in the Bhāgavata tenth book, was Krishna's foster-mother in Gokul. The legend records that, when she once asked the small Krishna to open his mouth to check whether he had eaten earth, she saw the entire universe inside his small mouth: galaxies, gods, the seven worlds. She then forgot the vision (by Krishna's own māyā) and went on treating him as her son. The body image is the mother at the door of the cowherd's hut, the small Krishna with his mouth open, the universe disappearing as the mother's eye closes back into mother-love. Yaśodā lived the verse-35 both are real: the cosmic Krishna and the cowherd-boy Krishna, in the same body, in the same hour.